We are living through a presidency that has cast aside the norms that have sustained our constitutional principles.
Former Trump White House counsel Ty Cobb, speaking on the PBS NewsHour about the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, warned that this White House’s attack on the rule of law now puts not only Donald Trump’s enemies, but all of us, in danger.
“Trump … ordered, in no uncertain terms, his attorney general to punish his enemies,” Cobb said. “And that historically is not the way America works. Now, that’s the way Allende’s Chile worked, Stalin’s Russia worked, Hitler’s Germany worked, but it’s not the way America works. It’s not the role of an attorney general to do what the president orders him to do in criminal matters.”
J. K. Amerson López is the author of “Embassy Kid: An American Foreign Service Family Memoir.” (courtesy, J. K. Amerson López)
Speaking on the same program, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks described the president’s actions as an erosion of our democracy, a violation of our fundamental principles. And his counterpart, the liberal Jonathan Capehart, summarized why the world is so worried about what is happening to our country.
“The United States has been a beacon around the world … primarily because of the rule of law,” he said. “The one thing that … the Constitution relied on, that the Founders relied on, was leaders of good character. And that is what we do not have in the current president of the United States.”
The world is right to be worried.
The United States has been a global beacon for freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, free and fair elections and, above all, the rule of law. This White House’s abuse of power is disabusing us of these fanciful notions. Donald Trump has set in motion the very emergency he claims to be fixing.
Trump is going after his enemies. James Comey’s indictment is such a flimsy case that no Justice Department attorney would touch it other than Trump’s former lawyer Lindsey Halligan, now a days-old U.S. attorney with no prosecutorial experience. Among those next in line: New York Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump for civil fraud; and Sen. Adam Schiff, who led Trump’s first impeachment.
Trump has sent armed soldiers on the streets of our cities, even as masked ICE agents round up brown-skinned people, including American citizens, without due process. Protesters of these illegal actions risk arrest themselves.
Trump’s dislike of Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue got him pulled off the airwaves. Left-wing organizations are now being targeted. The nationwide Oct. 18 No Kings Day protests are a timely and increasingly risky response.
Trump calls the media “enemies of the American people.” He has revoked White House access of the Associated Press, denied office space to CNN and The Washington Post, and sued The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Trump is casting doubt about the election process by targeting the mail-in ballot, a practice dating back to the American Civil War, in anticipation of the midterm elections.
The world is right to be worried. These are not the actions of a person of good character but rather the authoritarian actions of a dictator.
My father’s first post in his diplomatic career was Venezuela. When we landed in Caracas in 1955, the country was ruled by dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez. On Jan. 23, 1958, the dictator flew over our house into exile, having been ousted by a coup d’état. The four subsequent decades of democracy distinguished Venezuela on a continent ruled by dictators. The slide back into autocracy under Hugo Chávez in 1998 led to current president Nicolás Maduro’s dozen years of authoritarian rule.
The actions by the current occupant of the White House, including deadly strikes on Venezuelan boats, make me wonder if there will be a time when Donald Trump flies out of Palm Beach International and I will once again think: “The dictator flew over our house into exile.”
J. K. Amerson López is the author of “Embassy Kid: An American Foreign Service Family Memoir,” published by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training and Westphalia Press. She resides in Lake Worth Beach.
